Now Reading
Hello AIDA

This Space is For Sale

This Space is For Sale

Hello AIDA

Lampe Omoleye
HELLO AIDA - the spark youth empowerment platform in Nigeria

Stop Press! ‘AIDA’ is not a female name!


By Lampe Omoyele

If the headline of this article got your attention, it has fulfilled the ‘A’ of ‘AIDA’, one of the founding principles of modern marketing communication, an acronym that stands for Attention (or Awareness); Interest, Desire (or Decision); and Action.

Whilst there are a number of modified alternative models in current use taken into account new communication media and platforms, the AIDA model remains a veritable one for business owners and managers to use, as it identifies cognitive stages a person goes through during the purchase decision cycle for a product or service.

Awareness entails drawing attention to your business with the intent of triggering interest in the value or benefits offered, and subsequently eliciting desire,  moving the user or shopper from just ‘liking it’ to ‘wanting it’, and subsequently taking a purchase decision and action that favors your business.

With the plethora of media and platforms currently available which has led to media fragmentation and information overload, businesses and brands need to deploy content that resonates with the target market across relevant platforms and touchpoints in order to rise above the clutter and drive awareness and total recall.

There are four basic levels of awareness. The lowest level is ‘zero awareness’ where the business is unknown and is typified by new businesses. The challenge here is to develop content that draws attention.

The next level is ‘prompted awareness’ where the target market recalls the brand or business only when it is mentioned.

The third level is ‘unprompted awareness’; in this instance, the brand is recalled without being prompted, although it might not be amongst the top mentions.

The fourth and highest level is ‘top-of-mind awareness’; this is when the target market mentions the brand spontaneously.

Top-of-mind awareness should be the goal of every business as it ensures that your business would be in the consideration set each time the target market is pondering the purchase of the category.

There are various ways to grow awareness in cost-effective ways for big businesses and MSMEs alike, with a variety of media platforms now available.

The starting point is to develop high-quality content that connects with the target market.

It’s about creating one-to-one relationships that have a lasting impact on your audience and your brand. Attracting, delighting and engaging.

Effective content is authentic, creative, relatable, and makes an emotional and personal connection, whilst providing easily digestible information about the product or service benefits.

It takes the audience on a journey with the brand and inspires action. Content acts as your voice and ranges from text to videos, audio, images, and more.

However, before you can initiate or grow any relationship, you need to understand who you are trying to connect with; who are you talking to? It is important to segment and define your target market.

You cannot be everything to everybody. Defining your target audience and understanding their media consumption habits would help to guide content development and choice of platforms to place your content.

Whilst ‘traditional media’ viz. TV, radio, and print remain relevant to drive awareness depending on the product and target audience, new media such as social media platforms e.g. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are rising in significance.

There is also increasing convergence of the ‘traditional’ with the ‘new’ with the rise of digital technology.

The pertinent point is to have an insight of the demographics and psychographics of the target market.

For example, if your product or service is primarily used or bought by female teenagers, using Instagram would be more effective than printed newspapers.

See Also
online business 101 - the spark youth empowerment platform in nigeria

Whereas, if the primary target audience is males above 50 years, newspapers  or TV news programs would be more effective than Instagram.

Nitro121, the marketing communication company that I am privileged to run, recently rebranded and to drive awareness to this, we developed and ran content such as videos and texts posted on social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter as well as feature stories that ran in printed  newspapers and online blogsites.

We have also recently developed Business-to-Business content to drive awareness for a client, Comercio cloud company, Nigeria’s only indigenous cloud company.

The content speaks to the desire of businesses for cost-effective and safe storage of information which Comercio cloud company offers.

The selected platforms are those that are relevant to decision makers in target companies such as Linkedin, national and business newspapers, out-of-home sites and events.

With appropriate media planning and buying, the target customers would see the content and recall the brand.

The recent Airtel videos are a good example of memorable storytelling content that has driven awareness of the brand’s offer of 4G to the extent that when  Liverpool FC beat Barcelona FC 4-nil in the second leg of this year’s European Champion league, after losing the first leg 3-nil, it inspired a meme that said, ‘3G is good, but 4G is better’! Platforms used include videos placed on terrestrial and satellite TV and online platforms such as YouTube.

To recap, content and platform that work must be such that resonates with the target audience, are memorable and deliver on the AIDA principle.

Say hello to AIDA.




Download our Edition